


In a Flash

by papofglencoe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3983455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papofglencoe/pseuds/papofglencoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kat is a Capitol fashion designer with a secret past. In the wake of a high-profile engagement, she returns to her home in District 12 to confront her ghosts. There she discovers that, while you can take the girl out of the Seam, you can never really take the Seam out of the girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the movie Sweet Home Alabama  
> Rated Teen for language  
> Panem/AU  
> Contains quotes from The Hunger Games and Sweet Home Alabama

The girl is breathless, and as her bare, spindly legs cut a path through the dense undergrowth of the woods, she calls out to the boy to slow down.

“Hold up! I can’t run as fast as you!” She stops, desperately gasping for air, and bends down, leaning her hands on her knees. It feels like an arrow has pierced clean through her side, and her heart is pounding so hard it threatens to erupt in her chest. She can’t hear the restless chirping of the crickets over the pulse roaring in her ears. Her world spins, and she laughs in exhilaration. 

The boy pauses briefly, though not impatiently, and casts a glance over his shoulder. His blonde, wavy hair is already damp from the fat raindrops that have begun to cascade from the sky. He holds out his hand to her, and as she grasps his fingers, he yanks her arm, tugging her along. His grip is strong, and he propels her forward.

“We have to hurry, or we’re going to miss it!” he yells back over his shoulder.

“Miss what?” she asks, not receiving a reply. No matter. They’ll be there soon enough. She doesn’t have to ask him where they’re going. Even in the sable shadows of the cloudy summer night, here under the thick canopy of leaves, she can feel their route. Could take it in her sleep, with her eyes closed squeezed tightly shut. They’ve been here together a million times. 

The ferns and branches lash against their legs as they sprint, recklessly, toward the lake. She doesn’t register the sensation of twigs clawing at her delicate olive skin, of the welts and scratches left behind in their wake. She’s too excited to notice or care. 

The lake. It’s one of their favorite places, a secret watering hole few people in town know about. Buried deep in the woods, where no one but poachers venture for fear of being attacked by wild animals. The boy and girl are fearless, though, and emboldened by the hubris of a youth that assures them they’re completely beyond harm. They have never, in all their years exploring the woods, seen an animal more wild or vicious than an ambling buck, so they return time and again to the lake. It is theirs alone, a pure and delicious secret, one of many they share. It’s surrounded by pale, soft sand and camouflaged by cattails and reeds. 

On muggy summer nights the boy from town and the girl from the Seam meet at the lake, chastely stripping down to their undergarments, dashing headlong into the cool water. They splash each other and laugh and try to count all the stars in the sky overhead. Sometimes they reach as far as fifty and then, when they lose their place, start over. And the scrawny, undersized girl dunks the boy underwater while he pretends to resist. He launches her clear over his shoulder as she yells “cannonball” and disappears beneath the placid surface. They catapult themselves off the swing they’d placed on what they call the “Hanging Tree,” a large, sturdy oak which stands sentinel by the lakeshore. And they roast foraged nuts in the fireplace of the ramshackle cabin that sits, mouldering, at the tree line.

The boy breaks from the girl, sprinting, as they approach the edge of the woods. She can see the dusky light of the evening ahead, the place where the woods end and the gradual slope down to the beach begins. Within seconds, he has reached the dunes, and his silhouette vanishes from her sight.

As she reaches the crest of the woods, a flash of lightning illuminates the scene in front of her–she can see it momentarily reflected in the tranquil water of the lake, notes how the light outlines the hulking pines in the distance. At the flash she begins to count. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thous–. The rumble of thunder in the near distance disrupts her, and that’s when she knows. They’re here for the fireworks show. The thunderheads are rolling in, and one of the boy’s favorite things to do is to come here and watch the lightning dance across the sky. She can see him down on the beach, knees tucked up to his chest, in place and waiting for her to join him. 

She takes her spot next to him and, panting, collapses on the cool sand. He looks over at her, smiling and flushed, and then lays down next to her so that their heads rest inches apart. This time she reaches her hand out to his, and they silently intertwine their fingers. 

“The storm’s getting close,” she says, “I didn’t even make it to three one thousand.”

He nods in agreement. “Yeah, I’m guessing it’s only half a mile out. Shouldn’t be long now.” She can hear the excitement in his voice, the way each syllable dances enthusiastically off his tongue.

She looks at him, and even in the dark she can see the soft brown freckles that cover his nose, forming familiar constellations. She looks at their hands, the contrast of his fair skin against hers. He meets her gaze.

“Well,” he asks, blue eyes twinkling at her, “will you or won’t you?”

She bolts upright, scowling suspiciously. “Will I or won’t I what?” she asks, a slight edge creeping into her voice. 

His questions usually end up with them getting into a heap of trouble. The last time she blindly agreed to go along with him–he was really very persuasive–they ended up being taken into the police station by the sheriff for putting a live opossum in Gale Hawthorne’s mailbox (apparently “tampering” with mailboxes is a “federal offense” in Panem). Their parents made them sleep in the station all night as punishment. That’s the sort of thing that happens every time she commits to going along with him without finding out the details first. 

He chuckles and sits up, trying to meet her belligerent gaze. Something in her cool gray eyes makes him suddenly shy, and he looks down at the sand, scooping it up by the handful and then letting it sift through his fingers. 

“You know,” he replies bashfully. “Will you… marry me?”

She laughs incredulously, punching him in the shoulder. She can see the blush that has crept into his cheeks, and although they’ve been friends since they were five, he’s only recently begun to talk to her like this. She stands, brushing the sand off her thin cotton dress, which clings to her frame now from the falling rain. 

She answers, yelling over the rumble of thunder. “I can’t marry you, Peeta Mellark. I’m only eleven years old. I’ve got too much to live for!”

And with that she turns, laughing, and begins to run toward the Hanging Tree. 

She hears the heavy tread of his feet as he follows behind her. When they’ve halved the distance to the oak tree, it happens. The lightning strike. All of her senses experience it at once–the blinding flash that overwhelms her vision, temporarily blinding her; the fierce crack of the thunder that hits her with the intensity of a whip; the tremendous crashing of limbs in front of her; the feel of something invisible coursing along her spine, shaking her. She falls backwards, and the boy catches her as they slide down onto the sand in each other’s arms. She sits there, trembling as he holds her, and she notices that the fine hairs on her forearms are standing on end. She feels electric, like she is fire itself. In front of them, they can see dark lines etched into the dirt where the lightning traveled through the tree’s roots.

And, at the edge of the sand, a small dark pool of liquid is bored into the ground. She points, “What’s that?” and walks on wobbly legs towards it. 

She bends down to get a closer look and is mesmerized by the faint glowing embers of the pool, of the sound of the rain hissing as it falls onto the placid surface. Hesitantly she reaches out to touch it, only to feel the boy pull her back by the shoulder.

“Don’t. That’ll be hot,” he says. “Best to wait for it to cool.”

“Fine,” the girl replies, “then let’s go look at the damage to the tree.”

She turns to walk away, but she feels his hand tightly grasping her arm. She stops, facing him and looks up at his earnest expression. “No. Let’s stay here. We’ll be safe here,” he states matter-of-factly.

“Peeta Mellark,” she teases, “How can you possibly know that?”

He shrugs and answers simply, “Because lightning never strikes the same place twice.”

He’s looking down at her, something brewing in his eyes that she hasn’t seen before. She can see a storm where she’s used to only sunshine, and she feels suddenly that maybe she’s hurt his feelings or upset him somehow. She’s painfully aware, suddenly, of the feeling of his warm, strong hands on her arms. The hairs on her arms have begun to stand on end again, and she trembles. 

The stormy look in his eyes vanishes and is replaced with one of concern. “Are you cold?” he asks, and without waiting for a reply, wraps his arms around her. She can hear his heart beating in his chest, and she closes her eyes, allowing herself to be calmed by its steady rhythm. 

She’s asking him before she even realizes it. The words come spilling, unbidden, from her mouth. “What do you want to be married to me for anyhow?” 

He answers immediately, without pausing, as if he’d thought about his answer long before she’d even asked him the question. “So I can kiss you anytime I want.”

She pulls away slightly to look up at his face. She can tell he isn’t teasing her. There’s no merriment in his eyes, only sincerity. She’d never thought about it before–any boy, much less Peeta, wanting to kiss her. And she knows, then, that she wants to kiss him, too. 

She leans up on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around his neck. She can see the flush creep up his face as he swallows nervously. She gives him a small smile, one that he meets with his own rakish grin, and then she presses her lips against his. She can just feel the wet warmth of his mouth on hers when the second bolt of lightning strikes. As the bolt extends from the sky, illuminating the world around them, she opens her eyes to peek at its descent, her lips still pressed to his. The world is ablaze in a blinding white light. And then everything goes black. 

 

**********

 

The sudden crack of thunder outside the window jolts me awake. 

Shit. 

At some point in the night I had fallen asleep, and shit shit shit those assholes let me. My head snaps up in the panicked realization of this. I’m draped across my work station, a puddle of drool coating my hand and the smooth surface of the table. My neck is sore from sleeping–for how long?–hunched over my arms. I’m massaging a particularly stiff spot when I can hear Cinna’s soft snickering across the room. 

“That accent of yours sure is thicker in your sleep,” he says, his green eyes twinkling mischievously at me. 

“And do tell… who’s this ‘Peeta’ character?” Effie Trinket, my best friend and assistant, adds salaciously. “Whatever you two were doing, it sounded positively divine!” She claps her hands together and purses her lavender lips in a comic imitation of deep thought. I don’t want to know what she imagines I’d been dreaming about. I just hope I didn’t say anything too incriminating. 

The host of interns buzzing around the warehouse studio grows suspiciously quiet, and I get the distinct impression that they are genuinely curious about what my reply will be. In the Capitol, nothing piques interest like a juicy secret. But I’m not going to take the bait. 

I scowl at my friends and try to act totally unamused by their questions, when in fact this is only half-true. “Haha, you two think you’re so funny, don’t you?” And then, to change the subject, “Why’d you let me sleep?” I feel like a child whose parents put her to bed before throwing a dinner party–petulant and forlorn. “What did I miss?”

Effie smirks and mumbles under her breath, “It sounds like we were the ones missing out on something.”

I continue ignoring her and sit there silently instead, groggy from sleep and trying not to act too put out. 

Cinna walks up to me, patting my back comfortingly. “Look. It’s all right, Kat. We’ve got you covered. You’ve been working night and day for weeks on this show, and you deserved a break for a few minutes. Besides, if your own mentor can’t hold down the fort for you, then I’m not very competent, now am I?”

I look around at the racks of garments, each article carefully hung in place, by model and in the order it will appear in the show. Several dresses remain on the forms, seamstresses working furiously to complete their alterations before tomorrow’s show. 

Tomorrow’s show. 

Shit.

I feel panicky and immediately want to vomit at the realization that tomorrow’s show is my debut as a designer. I’m no longer under Cinna’s wing. I’m on my own now–the Capitol’s newest fashionista. It’s my name on the label. Well, sort of.

When I stumbled off the train at Paylor Station seven years ago, fifteen dollars to my name and with only the clothes on my back to call my own, I never imagined I’d make anything of myself in the Capitol. I fully expected to get chewed up, spat out, and then trampled under foot. And why not? That’s the sort of story you hear about every day. Even as a backwoods, 18-year-old girl from District 12, I was well aware of the reputation of the Capitol. It isn’t known for being a nice place. 

But then that’s probably why I have done so well here.

I didn’t know anybody in the Capitol, didn’t have any idea where I’d sleep. What I’d eat. How I’d find work. I just knew that I couldn’t look back. So, as I exited the station and walked onto the bustling streets, gaping like a slack jawed fool at the skyscrapers towering overhead, I literally collided with my guardian angel. Cinna. 

He’d been, like every other citizen of the Capitol that morning, making his way to work, eyes glued to the phone in his hand instead of the street in front of him. In his case, he was headed to his studio downtown. With his eyes cast downward and mine upward, we obliviously plowed into each other. His coffee spilled over both of us, disastrously dousing the fronts of our shirts. I blanched and winced, muttering a thousand useless apologies that I expected to be met with a string of insults, but instead I felt his arm on my mine. When I worked up the nerve to meet his gaze, I noticed that he was looking at me kindly, almost sympathetically, as if he noticed the crumpled train ticket clutched in my hand, the absence of luggage, the terrified expression in my eyes. 

His voice was calming. “Well, it looks like this calls for a change of wardrobe.” He laughed, sloughing the excess coffee off his black sweater. “You’re in luck, girly.” He grabbed my arm and said, “Come with me.”

The rest is history. As we walked to his studio, he found out I was handy with scissors, that I’d learned to sew from my mother, and he took me on as an apprentice. Mainly, I think, because he felt pity for the disheveled girl next to him. And although I’d never been one to accept favors, not even after my dad died and my family fell into poverty, in this case I really had no choice. Despite my total indifference to fashion, I threw myself headlong into my work, hoping to reward his faith in me. Over time, Cinna entrusted me with my own designs, and the reviews were overwhelmingly–shockingly–positive. The trick was, I quickly discovered, to make ridiculous clothing. The more garish and outlandish my designs, the more popular I became in the Capitol. There’s no accounting for taste here. 

One day a few months ago, Cinna pulled me into his office to, as he called it, “White Fang” me. He told me to, “Go out. Get. Spread your wings and fly, bird.” So that’s what I’m doing. For the second time in my life. It’s terrifying. 

I glance at my watch, noting with dismay that it’s ten after five in the morning already.

“Let’s wrap up, guys,” I say wearily, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “We should try to get a few hours of rest. I grab my keys and bag, and Effie and Cinna walk with me to the door.

He places his hands on my arms, the same way he did as when we met, and says reassuringly, “You’ll do great today, Kat. As your competitor, I’m probably not allowed to say this, but I’m going to anyway. I’m betting on you.”

I meet his wink with a smile and give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Cinna. I’ll see you later, right?”

He nods. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

**********

 

I stagger into my apartment and am immediately assailed by the scent of roses. They’re masking a foul odor–did I forget to take out the trash again?–and as I walk in I notice that roses are covering every possible surface of my apartment. The kitchen counters. The sofa. The bed. The floor. Thousands of long-stem roses, icy white to rhubarb pink to sunset crimson. 

I feel a flush creeping up my neck, chills coursing along my spine. He did this, I think to myself. How unbelievably... sweet. Sure, the smell of the roses is cloying, and mingled with the rotting trash and my jittery nerves, I’m feeling a bit nauseous. But it’s the thought that counts, I remind myself. He’s always so generous with his gifts. I can’t even begin to imagine the expense of this gesture, but then cost is never really a consideration for him. 

I spot a basket of bath oils on my bed and find a card tucked into it. I slide my finger beneath the flap, hastily tearing it open.

“K, I sent you a rose for every time I thought of you last night. Try to relax. Have a bath, clear your mind. They’re going to love you, just like I do. I’ll see you tonight.”

I press the stationery to my lips and give it quick kiss, glancing into the mirror above my dresser. I’m met with the visage of smiling death. My bobbed black hair hangs limpid and greasy around my face–when was the last time I showered? And my gray eyes are underscored with dark circles. My skin looks pallid and drawn. Screw taking a bath. What I need is sleep, and pronto. 

I peel my clothes off, roll back the down comforter, and climb into bed, my dumb grin still plastered on my face. I wake up several hours later, ready to conquer the world. After a shower, that is. And, as for him… I can’t wait to see him after the show, to run my hands through his golden hair and to feel his strong arms enfolding me. Sometimes I still can’t believe he’s mine. 

 

**********

 

“It’s all wrong! I mean, it’s all fucking wrong!!! This will be the death of us, Kaaaaaatttttt!” Effie wails for my attention.

I look at her to see what she’s caterwauling about and laugh as I watch her pulling and grasping at the crooked blouse hanging awkwardly on the model. One of the many reasons I adore Effie and consider her an invaluable companion is her ability to make me laugh, whether or not she intends to or in fact even realizes it. 

“It’s because you have it on her backwards,” I smirk before resuming my last-minute inspections.

She takes a step away from the model, assessing the shirt. “Oh,” she adds, dumbfounded. “I suppose it is!” 

I spot Cinna through the crowd buzzing around us backstage, and I flag him over to me. I hand him the note from the gift basket and nod to it. “Read it.”

He opens the note, one eyebrow quirking upwards as he scans its contents. “Ugh,” he groans, snapping it shut. “Please tell me he has a flaw somewhere,” he says meaningfully, gesturing to his own crotch. 

I laugh and shake my head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no flaw there…”

“Damn. Why are all the good men taken?” he jokingly laments. 

“If that bums you out, I guess it’s probably not a good time for me to mention that he asked me to spend Christmas with his family?”

“Oh, I think he’s gonna ask you a lot more than that,” Cinna adds meaningfully, the gold flecks in his eyes sparkling.

The suggestion makes my stomach roil. No, that can’t be right, I think. It’s too… soon. Or something. I feel vaguely uneasy, but surely that’s just the nerves from the show talking. “Do you think so?” I ask, my voice escaping as a squeak. 

He nods. “I’d bet on it.” As the lights in the audience begin to dim, he says, “That’s my cue. Well, good luck, dear.” He plants a quick peck on my cheek, and then he’s off. 

The pit in my stomach that Cinna’s words created lingers long after he’s taken his seat. Could he be right? I wonder. Is there a proposal coming my way? I turn this thought over in my mind, analyzing every possible facet, weighing its likelihood. The applause of the crowd does nothing to quell my anxiety. In fact, it seems to provide a soundtrack for it. The relentless driving rhythm of the music, the thunderous clapping, the wolf whistles, are all making my head pound. I just want to go somewhere quiet where I can think for a damn second. 

I reason with myself that maybe he just wants to announce our relationship officially, through his publicist. Or maybe he’ll ask me to move in with him. But there’s no way, after only six months of dating, he’d want to marry me. This is all happening so fast, and we haven’t even had our first fight yet. And, although he’s seen me naked, I feel like he hasn’t seen me bare. Could he love me enough to want to marry me? Does he even know me–the ugly, raw parts that become familiar only with time?

I peek around the curtain into the crowd, and I spot him sitting in the front row next to Cinna. It’s as if a spotlight is illuminating him instead of the models on the catwalk. His golden hair is glowing, his eyes sparkle. He shreds the scenery just sitting there. The fabric of his shirt strains from the mass of his athletic shoulders. He looks like an adonis, and it’s a bit too absurd for me to rationalize, how one human being could embody so much perfection. Truly, the man was made for celluloid, which is why it’s no surprise that he has parlayed his success as an athlete into a beloved television presenter for Capitol TV. No, there’s no question that he’s quite the catch, and it’s the sight of him, the giddy realization that he’s mine, that finally calms my nerves. 

His eyes dart to where I’m standing as if I’d yelled his name across the room, and he winks at me supportively. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, and a second later I can feel my phone buzzing in my hand. I glance down at it:

I’m proud of you, babe. Remember we have that thing tonight. I’ll have to meet you there, k?

With all the chaos of the past few weeks, I’d completely forgotten about the charity fundraiser at the MoMA. My bad. It turns out I’m too self-absorbed to remember that there are people in Panem with real problems–problems worse than whether or not their famous boyfriend wants to marry them. I decide not to mention my lapse of memory and text back: “k.” And then, because I’m feeling guilty about my earlier doubts, I add, “Thanks for the flowers.” 

He glances at my reply, smiles, and drops his phone back in his pocket. Then he blows a kiss my way, uncaring whether or not it draws any attention to us or if it’s caught on one of the hundreds of cameras filling the room.

Yep. It’s starting to look like Cinna’s right. 

I think Finnick Odair is going to propose to me. And that’s a complication I hadn’t expected. 

 

**********

The car pulls into a darkened alley, and I roll down the tinted window so that I can scan our surroundings. 

“This isn’t the MoMA,” I say, frowning. “Where are we?” 

Annie (or at least I think her name is Annie), Finnick’s assistant, is the only other person riding in the limo with me. I’m starting to think she lured me into the black car so that she could murder me here. Aside from myself, I’ve never seen someone scowl so much, although I think she reserves her best side eye for me.

She doesn’t look up from her phone, and with her long red hair draped around her face, I can’t read her expression. Her voice is impassive when she finally answers.

“Finnick just messaged me. He asked you to meet him inside.”

I look around, puzzled. “Inside where? You mean I have to get out the car, here?”

Redhead just nods in reply. Typical. I don’t know why Finnick puts up with her rancid attitude. I harumph and step out of the car, spotting an ajar door fifty feet down the alley. I surmise that’s my destination, and I scurry toward it, hoping I don’t break my ankle on the broken pavement or get mugged along the way. 

The door looks like it belongs on a prison, imposingly tall, solid and metal. It groans in protest as I open it further, and I step through it to enter a long, nondescript corridor. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker and buzz, matching the fluttering of my pulse. At the end of the corridor sits another metal door. For lack of better options, I walk hesitantly toward it, my heels clacking on the sterile white tile of the hall. As I approach the second door, it swings open with a jolt. A middle-aged man wearing a suit and white gloves steps out, a silver tray in hand. The room behind him is completely dark, providing no additional clue as to where I am except that I’m not to know yet. I give a sharp laugh at the juxtaposition between the filthy back alley and the dude who looks remarkably like a butler. 

“For you, ma’am,” he says, holding out the salver. It has a white card, addressed to me, placed on it. It’s in Finnick’s handwriting. 

“K, one last surprise for you tonight. Love, F”

The apprehension I felt in the alley and hallway is replaced with something else now, a fluttering sensation in my stomach. I feel faint, and I think I’m beginning to guess what’s through the doorway. 

The butler stands aside, gesturing for me to walk past him. As I do, the lights snap on, and I gasp at what’s before me. 

It’s the showroom of Glimmer and Co., Panem’s premiere jeweler. I’ve never been here before, but every girl in Panem knows what it looks like. We’ve seen it in movies, on television. There are songs about it. I think I may have even dreamed of it once or twice. Having entered through a service corridor, I’m standing at the back of the store, and I’m dwarfed by the grandeur before me. Towering, glittering chandeliers illuminate countless rows of cabinets filled with sparkling gemstones. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts set into precious metals that form tiaras, necklaces, bracelets. And, of course, rings. Behind every counter stands a tidily dressed, courteously smiling employee. They stand motionless, deferentially waiting for me to move forward. 

I see Finnick in the center of the showroom, tall and handsome in a perfectly tailored tuxedo. His hair, bronze under the tungsten lighting, is sculpted back, one lock hanging casually across his forehead. At the sight of him, my pulse quickens in anticipation. I walk toward him.

“Finnick? What’s going on?” I ask wonderingly, cautiously. “Clearly this isn’t a fundraiser.” I stop in front of him, placing my right hand on his chest. 

He curls his arms around my waist and gives me a crooked smile. Our eyes meet, and I find myself drawn into their emerald depths. He stoops his head down to kiss me, and even though I meet his kisses with hesitation and uncertainty, I feel his tongue ardently probing my mouth, lustily tracing the lines of my lips. “I thought we’d make a little side trip first,” he breathes quietly into my mouth. 

I pull away slightly to gaze up at his face and frown. This can’t really be happening to me, I think, and I ask him, “A side trip to do what?”

He drops his arms and takes a half step back, his typically cocky demeanor melting away in an instant to something more vulnerable. He wrings his hands for a second and then, thinking better of it, jams them into his trouser pockets. I’ve never seen this side of him. He’s usually so self-assured, so quick to action. He almost seems doubtful. 

“Well, I thought I’d bring you here to ask you something,” he says after a moment’s pause.

My heart threatens to explode, and I find that I’m having difficulty breathing. “Which is what?” I reply in a half-whisper.

And then he’s kneeling in front of me, looking up at me with his flawless face as he holds my trembling hands in his. “‘I’ve known from the first moment I laid eyes on you that we would make a wonderful team, Kat. We’re partners, allies. I can trust you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to know all of your secrets, to share everything with you. Will you do me the honor of being my wife, Katlin Undersee?”

As the name rolls off his tongue, I’m rocked with the gravity of what he’s asking. There is so much he doesn’t know, so much he can’t know, or he would most certainly change his mind about me. There are secrets that I can never share with him, that would overwhelm the both of us with shame. There are truths about me that I buried long ago, somewhere else, and that can never be unearthed. I worry that I will never truly fit into his world of luxury cars and private hovercrafts, that the poor girl from District 12 can only ever pretend to belong to his world of soft bed linens and rich pastries. And so I answer, before I can help it, “Are you sure?”

He’s taken aback by my reply, blinking several times to process what I’ve blurted at him. His reply is smooth and genteel, and for a moment he sounds like he’s adopted his TV persona. It’s as if his answer is for the benefit of an audience, which I guess it sort of is. “Why yes, I’m sure. You know I never do anything rash, and I don’t usually ask a question I don’t already have the answer to… so at the risk of being rejected twice, will you marry me?” 

He sounds slightly put out, and I scramble to conciliate him. I wipe my forehead with my palm, consciously smoothing out the wrinkle I get when I’m perturbed. I look around at the expectant staff members standing sentinel at their stations, and I ask quietly, “What I mean, Finnick, is what do you want to be married to me for anyhow?” 

He rises to meet my gaze directly and spends a moment crafting his response. He bites his lower lip, then says, “Because if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick.” He wraps his arms around me and gives my ass a little squeeze.

I laugh. He’s exactly right. I’ve seen how difficult life can get, how quickly it can turn on you. I know that you have to seize the sweetness before the bitterness washes over you. So I stand on my tiptoes and delicately kiss him. When I wrap my arms around his neck I murmur into his ear, “Okay then.”

He holds me tightly against his chest for a moment and then lets me go. He opens his arms to the room before him and says, “Go ahead. Pick a ring. Any one you want.”

The butler nods to his staff, and each employee takes a tray of lavish rings out from the counter and places it in front of them. I settle for a flawless, three carat Glimmer cut ring, and when Finnick places it on my finger I find myself tearing up. I know that all of this is too good to be true, and I can’t tell what’s real anymore and what’s made up. 

We step out of the front door of the store, arms linked together and laughing giddily, when I see the first flash of light. It’s blinding. It’s followed by the mechanical whir of a camera shutter and a man’s abrasive voice asking, “So, Mr. Odair and Ms. Undersee, do you have any news you’d like to share with the citizens of Panem? Should we be offering you our congratulations on anything?”

Finnick leans down to whisper in my ear. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called WPNM earlier with the scoop. I figured it would be best to publicly announce our engagement as soon as possible.”

I hide my surprise and nod. I don’t know why I should be surprised, come to think of it. Our engagement coincides perfectly with May sweeps. Of course he’d want his station to benefit from the ratings.

Finnick answers for both of us, flashing his most prizewinning grin for the station cameras. “Why yes, in fact there is.” He throws his arm around me, squeezing my hip. “Kat Undersee just agreed to be my wife. We’re excited to announce that we’ll be getting married later this summer in the Capitol. More details to follow soon.”

Without further comment, we climb into the car that has pulled around the building to escort us to the MoMA gala. Finnick is beaming, oblivious to my annoyance. I don’t really feel like tarnishing our engagement with our first fight, so I swallow all my anger and concern. Yes, it was presumptuous of him to assume I’d say yes to his proposal. It was overconfident of him to state we’d be getting married this summer in the Capitol. But, I reason with myself, it is precisely this bravado, this ambitious insistence on claiming his own destiny, that first attracted me to him in the first place. So I let it slide.

I’m clutching my phone in my hand, compiling a checklist of everything that needs to happen in order for us to be married in just a few short months, when he nods to my phone.

“Are you going to call your family to tell them the good news?” he asks excitedly. He almost sounds like a boy, youthful and exuberant. 

My family. Shit. I bite my lip and answer him carefully, “I think I should probably tell them in person.” 

He raises his eyebrows. “I love that idea! When should we go?”

Oh no. I shake my head vehemently. “I haven’t been home in… a while. I think I should probably go alone.”

He frowns, not understanding. “But, Kat, they’re going to have to meet me eventually.”

“And they will,” I say reassuringly. “And they’re going to love you… eventually.” I insist, “But this time I really need to go alone.”

Thankfully, he doesn’t press the matter. Our discussion is curtailed by our arrival at the museum. He steps out of the car before me, and I take a split second to compose myself before I take a deep breath and step onto the red carpet. He grasps my left hand, now encumbered with a shimmering glacier, and I as I rise from the seat of the car I can hear the excited gasps of the photographers lining our path. 

I need to go home, and I’m not at all prepared to face what waits for me there. But for now, there is only the flashing lights blinding me, incessantly firing, staving off the darkness.

 

**********

 

My phone buzzes in my hand, and as I look down at the caller ID, I wince. This isn’t going to be good. I flinch as I answer, “Hello?”

“I think I might actually despise you.” There’s a pregnant pause, followed by a list of obscenities. “I can’t believe your best friend had to find out you’re engaged on the evening news. I mean, who gets their information from the evening news anymore?! Millions of people had to find out before me, and that’s just so rude,” Effie bawls melodramatically.

I laugh. “I know, and I’m so sorry, Ef. He sprang it on me last night, and the minute we walked out of the store, the press was there. And then there was the red carpet and more press and…” I trail off. Surely everyone must know by now, and that makes my current mission all the trickier.

“Ugh, fine,” Effie relents. “I guess I’m happy for you, but only if you allow me to plan absolutely everything for your wedding. It’s not like I’m getting mine anytime soon. Anyway, want to meet for brunch?” 

I look out the train window at the billboard welcoming me to “coal country” that whooshes by the side of the tracks as the train cruises past it. The billboard has smiling white faces on it, pearly grins promising the “clean, green energy” of coal, as if those faces aren’t actually filthy and covered in soot. As if the men in the mines aren’t coughing up pieces of their lungs and dying from cancer. With their freshly scrubbed peach skin and luminescent blue eyes, I don’t see anything of myself, or of my father, in the advertisement. 

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m out on travel.”

“Ooooh, sounds fun! Lucky girl. A little celebratory trip with Finnick?”

I press my forehead to the window and close my eyes. “I wish. Nope. I’m alone. And… I’m in District 12.”

I hear the shock and abhorrence in her voice. “Well, why on earth would you go back there?”  
As the train clears the woods and skirts toward the edge of town, I can see the trailers of the Seam, the ramshackle trailer park where I grew up. It’s littered with broken down cars, crooked outbuildings filled with detritus. Knobby-kneed, grubby children are playing kickball in the field alongside the track, waving happily at the train. The conductor obliges them and honks a greeting. I hold my palm up to the window, waving back ruefully to the children who remind me so painfully of someone I used to know. I shake my head at the thought, willing it away. 

Moments later, we pull into the station. I slip my stilettos back on and smooth out my chic high-waisted pencil skirt. It’s from my collection, a white background with black outlines of soaring mockingjays, on silk. I take a quick glance into my compact, reapplying my lip gloss and smoothing out my sleek black hair. My oval face is perfectly framed by the cropped cut. It makes me look womanish, less girlish, and that thought emboldens me. Maybe this doesn’t have to be such a big deal. Maybe I’m capable of tackling this situation. Maybe I can win this after all. 

I step off the trail and am assailed by the smell of burning coal, earthy and dusty and sulphurous. I wrinkle my nose and look around me at the town square, at the old familiar shapes of the buildings, and am overcome with an emotion I can’t name. Is it revulsion? Or something else? I haven’t been here in seven years. I hadn’t imagined I’d ever come back at all. The town looks so different, and yet nothing has changed. I remembered it as so much bigger in my mind, and now it looks like nothing at all. Backwards and tiny, with insignificant people scuttling around on their insignificant business. In the distance, I see the corrugated tin roof of the Hob, and I wonder what trades are being made right now, within its walls. Greasy Sae is probably in there, like always, bartering for squirrel or lard. 

The only thing that has changed, among all this, is me.

I hold my head high and walk, in an imitation of bravery, toward the white clapboard building at the edge of the square. Under its tall windows, the building promises “pastries” and “cakes.” For me, it promises only trouble. I have business to attend to with the baker.

I ascend the bakery steps and, in one swift movement, swing open the door and step inside. The air is redolent with the smell of baking bread, delicious and mouth-watering. The racks of trays behind the counter are filled with my favorite, cheese buns, and I eye them wistfully, wishing I hadn’t skipped breakfast this morning. 

A boy with blonde hair emerges from the background, with a short and stocky build, and for a second I think it’s him. My stomach drops in an instant. The face is unfamiliar, and the boy can’t be older than sixteen, so I know it isn’t him. The boy smiles at me benignly, saying, “Hi there. How can I help you?” 

No. This is decidedly not the baker I’m looking for.

I stammer, “Um… I’ll just take a cheese bun. Thanks.”

As the boy grabs a bun, placing it into a white bag emblazoned with the bakery’s logo, I ask him casually, “So, um, do you know where I can find Peeta Mellark?”

He looks up at me, the smile never faltering. “Sure. Mr. Mellark’s off today, so he’s either at home or–” He’s interrupted by the bakery phone ringing behind him. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, but I have to grab that.”

I nod understandingly and turn, exiting the building. At least I got a cheese bun out of my trip to the bakery. It feels illicit. I haven’t allowed myself high carb food in years. I take a bite out of the bun, making an orgasmic sound of delight at the rush it gives me, and then I proceed gingerly down the path, careful not to twist my ankle on the unpaved roads of the town. 

I make it to his house fifteen minutes later and spend another fifteen standing outside, anxiously planning what it is I want to say. How to say it. Short and sweet, I decide. Scratch sweet. Just short. 

I see his rusty orange pickup in the driveway, so I know he’s home. I walk up the front sidewalk, noticing the changes he’s made to the house. He’s re-sided the single-story craftsman, replacing the faded yellow boards with a verdant green. In the front yard he’s planted a row of primroses, which are blooming now in the warm spring afternoon. The house looks good, and I hope the facade is indicative of an owner with an agreeable attitude. I climb the steps and knock, waiting for him to answer. Minutes that seem like hours pass, and still there’s no answer. I give one final, impatient knock, and then turn to leave. 

I’ve made it as far as the street when I hear the front door open behind me. 

I hear his voice calling to me, and it’s like a bomb has detonated in my gut. 

“Hey there! Sorry about that. I was in the kitchen and didn’t hear you knocking. How can I help you?”

After moments I find the strength to turn around and face him. It’s clear that, from the distance of the porch and with the changes to my appearance, he doesn’t immediately recognize me. But I’d recognize him anywhere. That wavy blonde hair, slightly shaggy around his ears and the nape of his neck. His piercing blue eyes. His razor sharp jaw line, his broad and muscled shoulders that ripple beneath his white t-shirt. Those strong forearms, covered in white flour. 

When I don’t meet his smile or immediately answer, he narrows his eyes. I see the moment of recognition, the pink flush that creeps up his neck and onto his cheeks, betraying him. He drops the pan of bread he’d been holding, his smile falling off his face like it had been smacked cleanly off of him. His mouth falls open in shock. And then I find my voice. I find all the anger and bitterness and disappointment within me. And I spit at him. 

“Well, for starters, you can get your stubborn ass down here and give me a divorce.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kat returns to her childhood home in District 12 to confront the ghosts of her past.

As the words tumble out of my mouth, I am instantly regretful. There is no way in hell that Peeta is going to cooperate with me now. I drew first blood, and I know he’ll want to snipe back. Blow for blow. Because that’s what we do. Fight each other. The flush that covered his neck and cheeks at the mere sight of me has snaked its way to the tips of his ears. He looks furious and stricken, and I know he isn’t going to make this easy. 

We hold eye contact in a silent battle of wills. His blue eyes are clouded with storms, and they clash with my steely gray eyes. Together our stare holds all the fury of the ocean in a tempest, the roaring thunder, the chilling wind and relentless waves. His gaze is piercing, and the way he looks at me feels like he’s irradiating me, scanning my bones for all their fractures. It’s like he can see me exactly for who I am. 

And I hate him for it. 

I cross my arms defensively, and as I do I can feel my engagement ring pressing into the crook of my elbow. Crap. If he notices the ring, he’ll know why I’ve shown up at his doorstep after all this time. He’ll know why it isn’t enough anymore simply for my lawyers to mail the papers to him. And, frankly, his injured pride will make a difficult task completely impossible. I covertly rotate the ring on my finger and curl my hand into a fist. The sharp edges of the diamond dig into the flesh of my palm, and for some reason the sensation incenses me.

I break eye contact, shattering the spell between us. I try to feign something akin to nonchalance. “We’ll have to be fast about this, Peeta. I have an afternoon train to catch.” I look down at my blouse and pretend to pick a piece of lint from it. 

Peeta gives a sharp, mirthless laugh, its staccato cutting through me like gunfire. “Well, you’re a piece of work, aren’t you?” he asks with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s so full of contempt that it drips from every word like a poisoned dart. 

But he’s not the only one overcome with contempt. I huff and sneer at him. “You know, I’ve never really understood that expression. But yes, I suppose I am a piece of work.”

He laughs again and looks away, absent-mindedly knocking a fist down onto the porch railing while frustratedly raking his other hand through his hair. “So... let me get this straight,” he says. “I’m trying to figure you out. You show up here after seven years, and those are the first words out of your mouth. Not so much as a ‘Hey, honey? How’ve you been? Remember me, your wife? How’s the family? You’re looking good! Or-’”

I cut him off. “Do you expect me to tell you that you look good? What, did they run out soap at the Hob?”

It was low blow, beneath even me, but his disdain has goaded me to the point of rage. How dare he look down his nose at me. Not after everything. 

He unconsciously takes a step back, reeling from the insult. He takes a hand and swipes flour from his forearm, from the front of his shirt. “Do they laugh at that in the Capitol, or wherever it is you’ve been?”

“You know damn well where I’ve been, Peeta,” I say, my voice rising. It was never a mystery where I’d gone, and he certainly never bothered finding me there. “Do you know how much money it costs me every time you send these papers back?” I hold my messenger bag up, indicating to the divorce papers within it. “I have lawyers that charge more by the hour than you make in an entire year!” 

He shakes his head at me, his voice quieter but harder. “Have you even gone home yet? And I suppose it’s not worth your precious time to visit–” 

“Don’t. Don’t you dare.” 

I feel the blood draining from my face, and I hiss as I inhale a sharp breath. He sees me pale, and he chokes back the rest of his words, biting his lip instead. A smart move on his part, I think, not to finish that thought. There are words you can say, accusations that you can make, that can never be taken back. There are words that can incinerate everything in your world the moment they’re spoken. We know this all too well. 

I slowly and deliberately approach him, climbing the porch steps and only stopping when I’m a foot from him. I see his body tense at my proximity, his jaw clench, its muscle rolling visibly through his cheek. I’m livid. I want to grab his shirt, to seize its fabric in my fists, to bury my face into his broad chest and scream at him how much I hate him. I want to pummel my fists uselessly against him and tell him he’s fucked everything up, that we’ve fucked everything up. That I never want to see his face again. 

I take my pointer finger instead and wave it inches from his chest. With each syllable, I move it closer to him. “It’s. None. Of. Your. Business.”

Coolly, slowly, he pushes my finger away with the back of his hand, and when he touches me I feel that familiar current, almost painful, coursing through my hand from the point of contact. I’d forgotten about that sensation and how agonizing it can be. 

I’m the one who takes half a step back now. 

“Maybe so,” he says quietly, “But all the same. You go visit them, and then maybe we’ll talk.”

He turns to walk away, back into the house. It’s more than I can take, the implication that I’m the one who doesn’t care. That he has the right to turn his back to me. I yell at his back, the words spilling from my gut, “The only reason you won’t sign these papers is because I want you to!”

He freezes with his hand on the doorknob, shooting a cursory glance over his shoulder at me. He’s flustered and angry, and his eyes flash with fury and hurt and something else I can’t name. 

“No, Katniss,” he says pointedly, emphasizing each letter of my real name, “The reason I won’t sign the papers is because you’ve turned into this... pretentious, affected Capitol mutt who doesn’t care about anyone but herself. I mean, you’re not even remotely nice. And I’d love nothing more than to piss you off.”

He opens the door, crosses the threshold, and slams the door in my face. The door rattles in its frame from the force of the motion, and I can hear Peeta lock it behind him. 

No. No, he does not get to walk away. There’s a train leaving for the Capitol at 4:30, and there’s a seat that has my name on it. He’s going to sign the damn papers, and then I’m never coming back to this hellhole again. We’ll finally be done with the disaster that was our marriage. I repeat this to myself several times, a mantra to steel my resolve, and then I storm around to the side of the house.

The flower bed is lined with rocks that we’d brought, one by one, from the lake. There must be hundreds of them, of all shapes, colors, and sizes, but I find the one I’m looking for right away. It’s a pale blue gritstone, smooth and egg-shaped. I stoop down and touch it, tracing the muted brown flecks on its surface. Together, they form a constellation in the shape of the letter “P.” I pick up the rock and see that, beneath it, the spare house key is still there. I smirk and prise the rusty key from its bed in the dirt. 

It must be my lucky day after all, because when I place the key in the keyhole, the knob effortlessly turns. Guess he never got around to changing the locks. His mistake. I pocket the key and drop my engagement ring into my bag, and then I breeze quietly through the door. Peeta is working in the kitchen in the back of the house. I can hear him pounding dough, furiously working his anger out on it. I can hear his heavy exhalations and uneven tread on the groaning floorboards, the way he shifts his weight from side to side when he’s throwing his full concentration into his work. 

I take the opportunity, while my presence is undetected, to glance around the room, and I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved to notice the absence of a woman’s touch in the decor. The room is tidy and clean, but every stick of furniture screams “bachelor pad.” The sofa in front of the picture window is a garish, threadbare plaid, and it clashes with the chartreuse armchair that sits next to the brick fireplace. All the tables and chairs in the room, including the dining table, are a mismatched and motley assortment of hand-me-downs. He’s apparently never had a woman live with him since I left him. That, or I’m only now remembering that people in District 12 are content to settle for whatever junk they can get their hands on. 

To be fair, the room isn’t completely hideous. Peeta has covered the walls with his paintings, most of which I recognize. His artwork was always so beautiful, I think, that it’s a shame he only ever used his talent to frost cakes. What a waste. There’s an easel in the corner of the room with a painting on it, and I creep closer to get a better look at what he’s working on. 

It’s breathtaking. 

The painting depicts two children running, laughing in the meadow at the edge of the woods. A girl and a boy. The girl is fair and has raven-colored hair and piercing blue eyes. The boy is olive skinned and freckled, and even though his eyes are gray, his hair is a tousled mop of blonde waves. They are the very picture of innocence and joy. They’re cutting a path through the golden oat grass, the girl clutching a fist of wildflowers. The sun sets behind them, casting a corona around their slight bodies. The painting is so lifelike that it looks like a photograph. And yet it is surreal, full of swirling brushstrokes and hazy colors which blend together so infinitesimally I can’t fathom how Peeta’s thick fingers could have crafted such delicate lines. The painting is both an observation and a record of a passing feeling.

For some reason it makes me feel wistful and forlorn. 

I trace the mottled lines of the paint with my hand, subsumed in my reverie, and I don’t immediately notice that Peeta has left the kitchen and is now standing in the doorway behind me. He clears his throat, and I whip my head around, startled. I don’t know how long he’s been there watching me. 

He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, almost looking gratified to see me standing in his living room. 

“You know, they call this ‘breaking and entering,’” he says smugly, as if he’s caught me doing something I shouldn’t be. And maybe he has. I certainly feel caught. I realize my hand is still on his painting, and I withdraw it slowly, as if to escape his notice. 

I arch an eyebrow, removing the key from my pocket to waggle it at him. “Not if I use the spare key.”

I imagine that his eyes are twinkling at me, that there is something flirtatious and warm in them, when he retorts, “Well, now see. That’s the thing about a spare key. It would be nice if your wife told you where it was hidden.”

There. He’s used it again. That word. 

Wife. 

I frown at how casually he bandies it around, like it’s something that we’ve ever really been to each other. Husband and wife. So I shake my head and tell him, “I’m not your wife, Peeta. I’m just the first girl who climbed into the back of your truck. I don’t even know that girl anymore.”

His arms drop to his sides, and I can see I’ve done it again. I’ve shot him straight in the heart. I don’t mean to hurt him this time, not really. I’m only telling him the truth. Just because we were two foolish, headstrong kids in love doesn’t mean that we had what we needed to be married, to weather the storms that married people are required to face. Hell, we fell spectacularly to pieces the second we heard the thunderheads rolling in. 

“Well, then let me be the one to remind you,” he says. He turns and walks into the kitchen. 

He favors his left leg, limping slightly as he goes. 

“You still got that limp, huh?” I call out to him as I browse through the books on his shelves, absentmindedly touching the tattered spines. Fitzgerald. Keats. Austen. Woolf. Orwell. My eyes zero in on one volume, covered in brown leather and embossed in gold. Hardy. This one was mine, and now that I have a place for it, I want it back. So I casually drop it into my messenger bag, not caring if he misses it or not. 

I can hear Peeta rummaging through the fridge, hear the popping of a can, and then after a couple minutes he reappears, holding a beer. “Mm-hmm,” he answers, plopping onto the sofa. “I ended up needing reconstructive surgery, and it’s just never felt right since.” He hoists his right leg onto the coffee table and then, more gingerly, crosses his left leg over it. 

Maybe he wants my pity, maybe not, but either way he isn’t getting it. I turn away and look at the nearest painting instead. Peeta’s knee injury was the beginning of the end for us, and as it turns out, I don’t want to talk about it.

I gesture to the painting. It’s of the Hanging Tree. I remember when he painted this, years ago, after the lightning had struck it. It shows the deep, black scar running along the trunk, the cleft branch that had nearly been amputated by the force of the storm. I wonder aloud, mostly to myself, “Did the tree survive all these years?”

His voice is soft and introspective when he says, “Yeah, it did. It’s a little worse for wear, but it’s still there.” 

I wonder how often Peeta goes back there, and I find myself wishing, against my will, that I could go back just one more time. But I’ll never see it again. We are sitting in silence, each lost in our own thoughts, when I see the squad car pull up in front of Peeta’s house, its lights flashing.

Pushing the frumpy lace curtains aside with one finger, I peek hesitantly around them. “You didn’t,” I say, galled. I look at Peeta, who is sitting there, smiling out the window. He takes a long, satisfied swig of his beer. “You called the sheriff on me?!” I squeal. “You know he hates me! Old Cray’s been out to get me since I pegged his rooster with that slingshot.”

“Yeah, probably shouldn’t have done that,” Peeta quips, unphased.

“You know it was an accident! And besides, we were like six. But try telling him that!” I feel myself breaking out into a cold sweat. 

“Nope. Guess you’re just gonna have to.” 

I scurry to the back of the house, through the kitchen, and am just escaping through the back door when I hear a familiar voice call out to me. It’s booming and friendly, nothing at all like Old Cray’s gravel pit of a voice. In fact it sounds like–

“Catnip?! Is that really you?”

I whip my head around, and I see him standing in the entrance. Tall and handsome as ever, his gray eyes crinkling at the corners. Gale Hawthorne. My old friend and hunting partner.

And now he’s the frickin’ sheriff. 

“Gale!” I screech, and before I know it, we run towards each other, my arms wrapping around his neck as he hoists me effortlessly into the air. 

We both laugh breathlessly as he spins me around.

He gently lowers me back onto the ground and takes a step backward to appraise me. “Well, look at you, Miss Fancy Capitol with your sleek new ‘do. I almost didn’t recognize you without the braid.” He gives my cropped hair a little tug. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you!” I laugh, patting the breast of his uniform with my hands. “And look at you… so sharp and… official! Who would’ve thought Gale Hawthorne would become the law one day. Whatever happened to Old Cray anyway? How’d you get roped into this gig?”

“Well, Old Cray retired a few years back, and because I’m a crack shot and tracker they recruited–”

Peeta’s voice cuts us off, and it’s obvious he’s annoyed by the enthusiastic reunion taking place before him. It was always so easy for me to make him jealous about my relationship with Gale, something I made a conscious effort never to do until my resentment made it one of my favorite hobbies. And, although I’m pleased to see one of my oldest friends, a boy who grew up on the same sordid side of the train tracks as me and who helped me hunt for food after my father died, I have to admit that I’ve been laying it on a bit thick to goad Peeta on. I find that I’m surprised I can still have that effect on him after all this time.

“Now hold up one minute,” Peeta admonishes Gale, his ears flushed crimson again. He’s standing a few feet away, arms crossed, and he’s avoiding looking at me. His blue eyes are locked on Gale instead, as if to will me away through avoidance. “Can we have some semblance of professionalism? We’re dealing with a crime suspect here. This woman is guilty of breaking and entering.”

I roll my eyes mockingly at Peeta and turn back to Gale, holding out the house key. “It’s not breaking and entering if this woman used her key to get in, right?”

Gale looks warily at the key in my palm, as if he doesn’t understand something critical. And his confusion makes me wonder if maybe there’s something he doesn’t understand about Peeta and me. 

Chastised by Peeta’s rebuke, Gale says, “Well, Catnip, I mean, even if you used a key, it’s still Peet’s house.”

Gale doesn’t know, then. Peeta hasn’t told him that we’re still married. Sonofabitch. 

“Here’s the thing, Gale,” I explain, “if you can just convince your buddy Peet to sign these, I’ll not only leave this house, but I'll let you drive me out of the district.” I reach into my bag and pull out the bundle of papers. The top one, in bold capital letters, veritably screams from the page: “Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.” When Gale sees the packet, his eyes bulge in disbelief.

“Noooooo,” he drawls, his voice dragging over the sounds of his surprise. “Peet, you said you’d taken care of this years ago!” 

Rubbing the back of his neck, Peeta sighs loudly and lamely answers, “I thought I had?” For someone so convincing and adept with words, I wonder why that's suddenly the best he can do.

He doesn’t fool Gale for a second. Gale tosses the papers down on the dining table, dismayed. “Christ, Peeta. You’re still married? Why haven’t you taken care of this?” He holds his palms up to us, thinking better of it. “Forget it. I don’t want to know. That’s your business. But if you two are still married,” he says, pointing to the two of us, “then what we have here is nothing more than a domestic dispute. Katniss has as much right to be here as you do.” 

“Ha!” I gloat triumphantly, plopping down on the sofa as if I own the place. Which I kind of, sort of do. Fifty percent of it, anyway. 

My smugness irritates Peeta further. He mutters an obscenity under his breath and paces the floor, cracking his knuckles and chewing his lips as he brainstorms a way to get rid of me. I try not to notice the sharp line of his jaw, the way his shoulders have broadened and thickened since we were teens. I can see his muscles flexing against the fabric of the shirt, as if Peeta’s body is suggesting that the best way to get me out of the house is to hoist me up and toss me out the front door. Once I’ve thought it, it’s hard to will that image out of my mind. 

Gale continues, “Now, if one of you says that the other has hurt them, then I’d have grounds to remove the offender from the premis-”

I cut him off. There are reasons, so many reasons, that Peeta and I fell apart. But spousal abuse isn’t one of them. “No, Gale. Peeta’s never hit me.” 

Gale looks over at Peeta, who’s stopped his pacing, and lifts his eyebrows questioningly at him. By way of answer Peeta shakes his head once. Then he fixes his searing blue eyes on me, and his gaze tells me that he’s understood the distinction I made in my answer: we’ve never hit each other, but we have hurt one another horribly. 

The silence hangs heavy in the room, and I notice the motes of dust drifting lazily through the air, aimlessly dancing in the sunlight. Their movement makes me feel smothered, as if the air is too thick to breathe, as if it’s liquid burning my lungs. Unconsciously, I begin to rub my throat, and I swallow noisily, my airway feeling constricted. I see Peeta’s hands clenched tightly in fists, the veins in his arms prominent from the tension. This is unbearable, and I need to get away from him. From this. What more can we possibly say to each other? 

It might be minutes, it might be hours, but Gale breaks the silence. He clears his throat uncomfortably and says, “I don’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t have the two of you in it. And I’m missing a few that I should have from that concussion you gave me.” He looks at me pointedly and smirks. “Anyway, I guess you’ll have a lot of catching up that you’ll want to do now, so I’m going to take off.” He takes turns glancing at the two of us, how we are rigidly and determinedly standing feet apart from each other, and he shakes his head in something that looks an awful lot like bemusement. “Okay. I’ll, ah, leave you guys to it. I’ll catch you later, Catnip? And hopefully not in another seven years, all right?”

Gale walks toward the front door, and I follow to escort him out. He steps onto the front porch and turns around, shooting me a lopsided grin. “It really was great to see you again,” he adds. 

I nod and smile warmly at him. As much as I hate to admit that this place holds any positive associations for me, it really was wonderful to see Gale. I step forward and hug him around his waist, nestling my face for a moment against his chest. I feel his arms pause before they wrap around my shoulders. He gives me a brief squeeze and then lets me go, saying, “Take care, Kat.”

I’m just about to shut the door closed behind him when Peeta calls out, as if a thought had just occurred to him, “Hey, sheriff.”

Gale pops his head back in the door, “Yeah, Peet?”

I grip the front door with my right hand and shoot a wary look over my shoulder at Peeta. I’d know that tone anywhere, and something tells me that he is going to drop a bomb. 

And I’m right. 

His blue eyes glitter mischievously as he says, “Isn’t there a warrant out for the arrest of the person who drove your mom’s truck into Darius’ pond?” 

“No…” I object, holding my hands up as if my palms could better explain the circumstances better than my mouth. My eyes widen in horror at the betrayal Peeta has just committed. Gale was never supposed to know it had been me–for eleven years the truth had gone undetected. How many times did we have the opportunity to confess to him, and how many times did we dodge that obligation? And sure, maybe I had been the one behind the steering wheel of Hazelle Hawthorne’s truck that day, but Peeta had been sitting there right beside me, laughing the entire way. He was the one who kicked open the door before the truck capsized and hauled us out of the pond and into the woods for cover. Now he’s letting me take the fall for it.

There’s nothing I can say in self-defense. I’m guilty of it, and I’m ashamed that I never had the integrity to own up to it to my friend.

Gale looks down at me with resignation and asks suspiciously, “Kat, is that true?” I can hear the betrayal in his voice, and it shames me. 

“Yes, but–” I say, breaking off when I see Gale reach into his back pocket, when I hear the metallic clatter of handcuffs. 

His gray eyes lock on mine, and they confirm what’s about to happen. 

I am under arrest. And so, it seems, Peeta is the victor of this game. 

For now, anyway. 

As Gale escorts me out of the house and into the back of the squad car, my hands cuffed behind my back, I shoot a scowl over my shoulder at Peeta. He’s standing with his arms crossed, proud as a peacock in the doorway. Across his face is plastered a look I remember all too well: satisfaction. 

God that boy makes me want to scream. 

 

*********** 

 

It must be midnight, it must be tomorrow when I finally hear the heavy metal jail door groaning along its track. I bolt upright from the cot and look sheepishly at the man who is standing there, stone-faced and impassive. 

“Look, Gale,” I begin, “I’m so sorry, I should have–”

He sighs wearily and runs his hands along his face, wiping the sleep from the corners of his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, cutting me off. “It’s ancient history. But you should probably swing by the old place sometime to apologize to my mom, okay?”

I don’t know what to say, so I just nod, grateful that he seems to be letting me off the hook–if not legally, at least emotionally. 

“You can make your phone call now and get out of here.” He stands aside, allowing me to pass by him. As I walk by he holds out his hand, offering me a quarter. 

I gaze quizzically at the coin and then up at him, trying to figure out if the coin is a token of peace or actually has some utility. 

“It’s for the pay phone,” he explains, impatiently bopping his hand up and down, gesturing for me to hurry and take it. 

You’ve got to be kidding me, I think. Who still uses pay phones? Leave it to podunk District 12 to live like pilgrims. I shake my head, biting back a laugh, and take the quarter with me to the pay phone down the hall. It’s like the goddamn Middle Ages in this town. 

I tap the coin several times against the handset, deliberating who I should call to bail me out in the middle of the night, before I settle on the obvious choice. There aren’t many options, but there’s one person less likely to ask incriminating questions or throw a huge stink over me. So I plunk the coin in the slot, punch the numbers I still know by heart, and hold my breath as I count the rings. 

One. Please answer. Two. Please answer. Three. What if there’s no answer. Four. Shit. There’s no answer. Five. Do I even want him to answer? 

He answers on the sixth ring, his voice gruff from sleep and sounding like a bag of rocks being dragged across concrete.

“Yeah?” he snaps, “Whoever this is, it better be good, because I sure ain’t in the mood for a social call.”

“Haymitch. It’s me. Katniss.” I continue speaking when this information is met with only the sound of the line’s static crackling in my ear. “Are you sober enough to come pick me up?” I wince at the bluntness of the question, not intending to insult the person I need to help me out of my jam, but with Haymitch Abernathy’s history of substance abuse, it’s a valid concern. 

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he replies, his tone laden with his trademark cynicism. “The question is whether I’m drunk enough to put up with your crap at 3 am. To which the answer is a resounding ‘no.’”

“Ha ha, you’re cute,” I retort, scowling into the phone. “But seriously, can you come pick me up?”

I hear him sigh into the receiver, its sound reminding me of the countless times I’ve called Haymitch asking for the very same favor–and how he’s never refused to help me, no matter how much he complains about it. I feel the guilt washing over me, making my stomach queasy. This man was like a father to me after my dad died, and how have I ever repaid him? I haven’t called him in years, and I feel so ungrateful and wrong calling him like this now. But what choice do I have? 

“Some things never change, huh? But yeah, doll. I can do that. Where are you?” he asks. 

I gulp and clutch the phone tightly to my mouth, as if I were guarding some sordid secret that the on-duty officers didn’t already know. “Where do you think?” I whisper conspiratorially. 

He chortles into the phone. “Must have paid the boy a visit. Atta girl.” Some thought amuses him greatly about this because his snickering morphs into a guffaw. 

I’m annoyed that he finds my predicament humorous. “Very astute observation, and I’m so terribly glad it brings you joy. Now can you just come pick me up?”

“Hold on. I’ll be there in ten minutes. I just gotta find some socks. Easier said than done.” I hear a click, and the line goes dead. Haymitch and I were never ones to observe the social graces.

I find a bank of blue plastic chairs along the wall and sit gingerly in the least filthy-looking chair, perching on the edge to minimize contact with the fabric of my skirt. I rest my hands on my knees, not wanting to touch anything unnecessarily, and close my eyes to shut everything out. I sit like this, unmoving, until I hear the familiar rumble of Haymitch’s truck engine pull up in front of the station. 

I slide off my heels and climb into the passenger seat of his truck without ceremony. I glance over at him and say the first thing that comes to mind. “You look like hell.” It’s true. The years have not been kind to Haymitch Abernathy. His dark hair has grayed and thinned, and he’s significantly paunchier around the middle. His skin is yellowed and lined from years of abuse to his body. But his eyes are clear and nothing like the blood-shot, red-rimmed wrecks I remember. 

He looks at me with his incisive gray eyes, the same color as mine, so common among the people of the Seam, and cackles, “Well, honey, if we’re being honest, that’s a mighty fine accent you’ve found yourself in the Capitol.”

I frown at him, “What do you mean?”

“I’m so terribly glad it brings you joy,” he mocks me in the affected tones of the Capitol. And he’s right. It does sort of sound like me. 

For once I don’t have a retort prepared for him, and so I look out my passenger window at the town as it slides by. 

Haymitch thrums his fingers on the steering wheel and asks, “So… I’m sort of afraid to know, but what got you locked up in the clink this time?”

“What do you think?” I grunt. “Peeta and his big damn mouth. A misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding, huh? Sort of like that wedding you had?”

I sneer at the word, at the implication that I’m somehow to blame for what happened. “I’d hardly call that a wedding, Haymitch. Peeta was still drunk from the night before. He was too trashed for a toasting ceremony, and I had to show up to our reception alone with his puke caked down the front of my dress while he slept it off in the bed of Gale’s truck. Some misunderstanding, right?”

Haymitch makes an impatient sound, like I’m a dullard, and he’s about to tell me something painfully manifest. “Look, the boy was nervous, Katniss. I think it’s time you flipped this little scenario around in your head. If it had been you that had done that, is this how Peeta would be treating you?”

No. No it isn’t. He would have forgiven me. Maybe not immediately, but quickly. And he would have found a way to laugh about it, to make it part of an endearing story about our life together. 

But I’m not Peeta. 

“It wasn’t me, was it, Haymitch? That seems worth noting. I never left Peeta alone like that.”

“Didn’t you though? I mean, do you really believe that? Because if you do, let me assure you that you could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.” 

I cross my arms defensively, my temper flaring. I gaze intently into the rearview mirror, at the shrinking lights of the town as we leave it behind. I look anywhere but at Haymitch. “He always was your favorite,” I sulk. I can feel that my face is flushed, and I’m frustrated that I’m betraying even myself. I hope he can’t see how his words have affected me. 

Haymitch shakes his head and bites his cheek. “You always were as stupid as you are stubborn.”

I throw my hands up in the air. “Okay, then. if you care about me so damn much, then why are you defending him?”

Haymitch is silent for several moments. We both gaze out the windshield as we pull into the Seam Estates, our bodies jostling back and forth in the truck from the deep potholes of the dirt road beneath us. He pulls up in front of my mother’s trailer and puts the truck in park, turning to me and meeting my eyes again at last. His expression is grave as he says, “Because you’re punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control.”

I bite my lip and look away, blinking away the tears from my eyes. “I can’t even remember exactly what we said to each other. It’s been so long. I only remember how it felt when it all went wrong. How he wasn't there for me. And it really doesn’t matter, Haymitch, because I’ve met somebody new.”

He nods, unsurprised, and says, “Have you.” It isn’t a question. It’s a statement. 

Like everything out of his mouth, his response rubs me the wrong way. “What in the hell does that mean, ‘Have you’? Is that so impossibly hard to believe? Is it so wrong of me, to want to be happy, after everything?”

“No. And no.” Haymitch reaches out and gives my hand a fleeting squeeze. It’s about all the affection he’s capable of showing. “So tell me about this swell new guy of yours.” 

How do I start to describe Finnick? I know that, with Haymitch, he’ll want the abridged version. I have about ten seconds to make a good impression for my fiance, and so I weigh my words carefully. “Well, let’s see. He’s good-looking. Ambitious. Talented. Hard-working. Loyal. Loving. And he’s going places.”

Haymitch nods in approval, jutting his lower lip out in thought. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

This pleases me. Haymitch is stingy with his praise, but he clearly thinks I’ve made a good match, that I’ve found my equal. I lean forward and give him a hug, “Thank you.”

He pulls back to meet my eyes, placing his hand paternally on my shoulder. “You know I’m not one to say it, but I’m proud of you, sweetheart, and of what you’ve made of yourself. But when I said it reminded me of someone, I wasn’t talking about you.”

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but years away from Haymitch have left me a bit rusty in his ways. I hold my shoulders up, refusing to allow my face to show the disappointment I feel. I turn to exit the car, placing my hand on the knob when Haymitch begins to speak. 

“Look, if you’ve really found someone new, someone that can make you happy, then who am I to say anything? Hell, what do I know about love? I’m just some lonely old fart. But I want to know that wherever you choose to go it’s not because you’re running from where you really want to be. You say you can’t even remember the things you said, and, well, I’m guessing that just might include some of the promises you made, too.”

I step out of the truck, turning to face him. I’m feeling bold, impatient, and frankly more than a little tired of this conversation. I shoot at him, “What would you have me do, Haymitch? Are you saying I should have stayed, should have resigned myself to the shit future I had waiting for me here?” I hold my arms out, mockingly gesturing to the grandeur of the kingdom around me... the Seam. I can feel, even in the quiet of the night, the squalid desperation and pain of every person here as they sleep in their cramped, worn out beds. 

“No, sweetheart. Should have. Would have.” He waves his hand in the air, as if dispelling the words before him. “There’s no point to thinking like that. What I’m saying is that you should try and remember. I think you owe that much.”

“I owe that much?” My voice rises as my temper sparks. I no longer care who might hear me through their open windows. “I owe that? To whom? Your precious Peeta, I suppose?”

Haymitch looks so old, then, so defeated as he says, “No. Just Katniss. You owe it to Katniss, Ms. Undersee.”

He leans forward, pulling the passenger door shut in one swift movement. He doesn’t wait for me to enter my mother’s trailer before he peels off, headed to his place across the estate. 

I turn around, taking in the sight of my mother’s double-wide trailer. My childhood home. This is one of the places I swore I’d never see again. And now I’m here, in the early hours of the morning, with just the clothes on my back to my name. And I allow myself to feel it. How scared and alone and tired I am of hiding from a past that I carry with me every day. 

I walk up the rotted wood steps and test the front door to see if it’s unlocked. The door swings open effortlessly, and I walk in. The place is virtually unchanged. I pad silently across the lime green shag carpet, touching the wood panelled walls, and approach the sleeping figure of my mother. She’s curled up in a ball on the recliner, the television set silently flickering images of an infomercial, casting a glow on her slight frame. I reach over her, grabbing a crocheted afghan, and drape it across her for warmth. 

I’m resentful that no matter how many tickets I have bought her to visit me in the Capitol she has never once come to see me. I’m angry that she has never been there for me emotionally when I have most needed her. When my father died, her depression crippled her. She left me to fend for the family, to hunt for food in the woods. And once she got better, after years of hardship, she threw herself into her work. 

And when my world exploded–when our world exploded–she was characteristically absent again. 

But she’s my mother. The only one I will ever have, and I love her. So I lean over her sleeping frame, brushing her silky blonde hair off her forehead and give her a kiss. 

“Mmmm, Kat, is that you?” she asks sleepily, unable to fully open her eyes. 

I don’t wish to confuse or upset her, and after the day I’ve had, I honestly don’t even want her to wake up. I just want to crawl into bed and put the emotional upheaval of today permanently behind me. “Shush,” I soothe her, “It’s just me, and I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

“M’kay, night,” she mumbles, rolling over onto her other side, and once more she’s as good dead to the world.

I amble down the hall, my pulse racing as I approach the closed door of my bedroom. I clutch the knob for what feels like an eternity, paralyzed by the fear of what I’ll see when I finally find the courage to open the door. There’s no one that can help me through this. I have to face it alone. 

I enter the room that I shared with my sister Prim when we were kids, turning on the light and gasping as I look around. It’s a worst-case scenario. The room is a veritable shrine to our lost childhood, and I’m overcome with grief for all the faded promises of youth. 

Our trophies lines the shelves–mine for archery, Prim’s for academic achievement. The comforter on our twin bed is the same one we used as kids–covered in rainbows and trimmed in silly pink ruffles. Prim had insisted that I make it for us when she found the print fabric at the Hob. Prim’s old stuffed goat, Lady, still rests on the bed. And Peeta’s sketches line every inch of the walls, the edges curled and pages yellowed. 

I walk toward my favorite sketch, and I remove it from the wall, careful not to tear it. It’s of Prim and me, drawn one Christmas morning. She must have been 12, I was 16. Peeta drew us napping in front of the fire after we’d stuffed ourselves on turkey and mashed potatoes and plum pudding. And even though the drawing is just done in charcoal, we glow like we are on fire. We look as radiant as the sun and just as peaceful. I love that Peeta was able to capture the serenity of holding my sister in my arms. I hold the drawing to my heart and feel like this is all too much for one person to take. 

I hastily turn off the light, unable to see any more of it tonight, and crawl in between the sheets. I bury my face in the soft down pillow and only then, when I am completely alone and protected by the watches of the night, I allow myself to weep. I heave sobs into the pillow until the darkness claims me. 

 

**********

 

The night envelops them in its cloak, protecting them from the prying eyes of the world. The girl nestles onto the boy’s chest, the heat of his body radiating into her bones, staving off the chill of the cool evening air. She’s only wearing a thin cotton shift dress, and yet he’s so warm, so impossibly warm, that she feels blanketed by his heat. She wraps her bare legs around his, squeezing her thighs together to capture all his warmth within her. 

The summer breeze wends lazily across the meadow, the tall grass swaying from the ministrations of its invisible current. Its rustling covers the sounds of the boy’s and girl’s whispers. The boy’s truck stands sentinel against intruders, the deep lines its tires have etched in the mud stretching all the way back toward the town. They lay in the car’s shadow, unobserved and alone. 

She rests her hand on his chest, over his heart, and can hear it beating strong and true within him. She buries her face into him, overwhelmed with love, and kisses his chest repeatedly, the soft cotton fabric brushing against her lips. In response he pulls her closer to him, the muscles of his strong arms flexing, clamping her against his body.

“Is that one your wrestling moves?” she teases him, tracing circles on his chest. 

He grasps her hand, twining their fingers together, and chuckles, “No, Miss Everdeen, but one of these days I’ll have to try one of my wrestling moves out on you.” He laughs and adds, “When you’re ready for it, that is.”

She lifts her head up, locking eyes meaningfully with him. “I’d like that very much, Mr. Mellark,” she says in a low voice. His eyes, usually as blue as a summer afternoon, glow darkly at her, his irises subsumed by his pupils. She lowers her mouth to his, kissing him gently to emphasize her point. His hands make their way to her neck, caressing her face along her jawline, pushing the loose locks of her hair behind her ear. The sensation is almost too much for her to bear, and the girl traces the seam of his mouth with her tongue, encouraging him to part his lips. Their tongues begin to dance lightly against each other, and as the boy pulls her in for a deep kiss, she moans into his mouth. 

She breaks from the kiss, whispering his name like it is a sacred incantation. Her eyes flit across his face, absorbing each feature as if she were seeing it for the very first time. She caresses the strong line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his lips, and then makes her way to the freckles on the bridge of his nose. Connecting the freckles, she traces the letter “w” and murmurs to herself, “Cassiopeia.” When she meets his gaze, she sees he’s frowning at this, unsure of what she has said. 

“Um, come again? Was that English?” he asks gingerly, not wanting the girl to stop what she has been doing but wanting very much to know what she has said. 

She laughs gently and says, “Not exactly.” She takes his right hand in hers and lifts them toward the sky, using their pointer fingers to draw a path. “Here, City Boy,” she explains, “See that constellation that looks like the letter ‘w’?” 

“Yeah,” he replies, waiting for the punchline. 

“Well, that constellation is here.” Again, she traces the shape on his nose. “It’s called Cassiopeia, and it’s my favorite constellation. Because I see it every time I look at you.”

She blushes from the confession and looks away, feeling maudlin and sentimental.

He pulls her face back toward her, insisting that they hold eye contact. “What else do you see?” he asks her encouragingly. 

She smiles and takes his hand again, pointing out another constellation in the sky. “You see that? Those three stars forming a straight line? That’s the hunter’s belt, the Belt of Orion. And you have that, too.” Her eyes cast downward, and her blush deepens to a shade of crimson. 

He laughs at her bashfulness. “Yeah? This should be good. Where do you see that?”

She sits up, suddenly sober, and her voice feels strangled in her throat as she says, “If you want to know, you'll have to take off your shirt.”

The boy sits up, facing her, and his shoulders shake with laughter. “Oh? I’ll have to take off my shirt, will I? Katniss, are you just trying to seduce me?”

She shakes her head, still serious, and as the boy scans the emotions on her face, the smile slides off his own and is replaced with something intense and searching. He eagerly offers, “Okay, the shirt can go. But you’re going to have to be the one to take it off.”

Slowly, as if she were approaching an injured animal, she leans toward him and places her hands on the hem of his shirt, sliding it upward along his body. Her fingers skim his abdomen, then ribcage, and when they reach his chest he lifts his arms above his head. She kneels before him, lifting his shirt off of him. Before the shirt passes over his head, she pecks him quickly on the lips. 

She drops the shirt onto the grass and hesitantly lifts her face back to meet his. They’re both breathing heavily, and their anticipation and nerves make them laugh together, the girl moving to cover her grin with her hands. The boy reaches out, quick as a bolt of lightning, and captures her hands. 

“Don’t,” he says. “I want to see your beautiful smile.”

They are sitting like that, immobile, with the girl’s small hands held within the boy’s broad ones when she notices his skin is peppered with goosebumps.

“Poor guy,” she says, frowning, “Are you cold?”

His answer is simple and immediate. He shakes his head. “Not at all.” 

Her mouth curls into a slight smile. “Would you like me to show you where I can see the constellation?”

The boy nods, releasing her hands. She inches toward him, taking her index finger and running it along the skin of his left pectoral muscle, over his heart. “It’s right here,” she tells him. As her finger moves along his chest, she can hear him draw in a sharp breath. It sounds like the hissing of hot coals. 

Their faces are inches apart, and the boy closes the distance within a second, capturing her face between his hands and passionately pressing his lips to hers. She angles her face and sucks on his lower lip, making the boy gasp out her name. She climbs onto his lap, straddling him, and she can feel heat pooling between her legs. She finds that she aches for him, and as their kisses grow fervered and wet, she begins to grind against him to satisfy her need. He clasps her hips, digging his fingers into her skin and lolls his head skyward. She takes the opportunity to suck on the delicate skin of his exposed neck, and before she realizes what has happened, she is laying flat on her back, the boy hovering above her, gently pinning her beneath him. 

She laughs and teases him, “Is that the best move you’ve got, Mellark?”

She can see the telltale pink flush creeping up along his neck, and she tries to lean up to kiss him again, but he holds her down firmly by her wrists. She wraps her legs around him and draws him down to her until their pelvises are touching. She can feel that he is hard, and she wants to explore every inch of him, to know everything about him. 

The boy leans on his forearms so that he doesn’t crush her under his weight. He closes his eyes and murmurs, “Katniss.” And it’s a question he is asking her. 

The girl demands, “Kiss me,” and now it’s the boy moaning into her mouth as they begin to rub their bodies against each other. 

He kisses her neck, capturing her skin between his teeth, then buries his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. She smells like mint and pine and honeysuckle. 

 

“You smell so perfect,” he says. “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.”

“Okay,” she gasps, “I’ll allow it.”

“You’ll allow it?” he asks, quirking up an eyebrow.

She wraps her arms around the back of his head, drawing him down to her breast. She wants to feel his mouth on her. She feels greedy for him, like she could never have enough of him. “Yes, I’ll allow it.”

She can feel the heat of his breath on her breast through the fabric of her dress, and the sensation on her nipple makes her anxious for more. She whimpers and begs him, “I need you. Now.”

His face is alight, and he calmly, painstakingly slides her underwear off of her. She lifts her hips to assist him, and he strokes the length of her thighs, planting kisses along the inside of her legs as he takes off her panties. He hovers over her, kissing her gently, as his hand begins to explore her. The pad of his thumb scrapes over her clit, causing her to gasp in pleasure. He smiles at her reaction and focuses his attention there until her hips begin to buck desperately toward him. Her hands reach for him, caressing the fine hairs below his navel, dipping into his pants to grasp him. 

She moans as she feels him in her hand, and she pulls down his pants to free him. The girl wants to see him, to discover the ways she can make him feel good. She watches him twitch, and she is overcome with a hunger she has never known before. She takes her hand and guides him toward her center. 

They pause, suspended like that for a moment, softly laughing at their own nerves, daunted by the step they are about to take, and then he plunges inside of her, filling her. She cries out his name. There is some pain, but it pales compared to the pleasure. She never knew that she could feel like this, and as she feels him move inside her, she is convinced they are as eternal as the cosmos. As they rock together, in tandem, every limb entwined, sharing the same breath, the sound of their hips colliding repeatedly, she comes completely undone. And she is blinded, the stars in the sky explode overhead, and every constellation flashes a mad, pulsating rhythm as she clamps her eyes shut. 

“Stay with me,” she cries out. And the boy whispers a word back, but she doesn’t quite catch it over the sound of their ragged breaths.


End file.
